


Crickets After Midnight.

by imissedyourbones



Category: Panic! at the Disco, The Young Veins
Genre: Dreams, F/M, I still have no idea what to tag, Insecurity, It just happened, Some Fluff, Visions, drug addiction mention, i really enjoyed writing this, imagining the future, reflecting on the past, stage fright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissedyourbones/pseuds/imissedyourbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I remember Spencer talking me onto that stage, Brendon bouncing up and down saying "Come on, man. We're up!" like he could do this with breakfast and he probably could. Now that the split is in some parts behind me, I can reminisce on how much Brendon's endless energy has helped get us all through the day.</p><p>-Or the one where Ryan tries to imagine what his life could be like a few years down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crickets After Midnight.

**Author's Note:**

> This was really fun to write and kind of sad... Do I really think Ryan feels this way? I have no idea, maybe? What do you guys think?  
> I hope he finds someone that makes him happy. :)

 

Sometimes I try to imagine where I could be some few years down the road.

It's good influence for the music, Dan says.

I'm not sure if I like what I imagine though.

I'm in bed and it's four in the morning already, the faraway mewling of stray cats the only source of life outside my dark room- No, _our_ dark room. There's a warm presence next to me, a wife. She's only a faceless ballerina in my vision yet I can feel my love for her burning deeper than my lyrics can express. She's the most beautiful empty canvas I've ever seen.

I'm wide awake listening to her soft snores next to me, and I'm wondering what woke me up so late. She's close enough for our limbs to tangle, breaths to mix. I can feel the rise and fall of her chest against mine and it's usually enough to put me to hazy sleep but it doesn't seem to be working tonight. In exactly eight hours, I'll be playing my first show as a solo artist. "Yes," the fans have said, "finally!"

There will be thousands of them.

I remember playing my first big show with Panic!. We'd never played in front of a big crowd before. Hell, we'd never played much in front of a small crowd either. Our first ever show was at a Mormon church so you would figure. It was the most exhilaratingly frightening event of my life at the time. I remember Spencer talking me onto that stage, Brendon bouncing up and down saying "Come on, man. We're up!" like he could do this with breakfast and he probably could. Now that the split is in some parts behind me, I can reminisce on how much Brendon's endless energy has helped get us all through the day.

The Young Veins' first show was nothing like that but it was all the same anyway. The nerves were of a completely different reason but they were there none the less. There I was, supposedly on top of the world, making the type of music that I've always wanted to have my name attached to and yet I was terrified of that big portion of Panic! Fans that had somehow stuck by me. Are they over the disappointment? Will they like the complete 180 switch? In the end it was Jon who had to drag me up the stage that time around. Jon is doing wonderfully in my vision, surrounded by beautiful bubbling babies and good music. 

Tomorrow- or should I say today now?- it's a London arena. And it's a big one. And I'm right back to those stages of uncertainty that haunt every first show.

So maybe it were the nerves that woke me up.

I tell myself, music should never make you nervous. I say, pull it together. But it's not the same as when Spencer used to do it. I still can't believe I had to hear about Spencer's addiction from the news. It was probably the moment I realized "Oh. He's not your best friend anymore, remember?" and time sort of stopped right there. I'd like to meet his savior one day, Linda. I'd like to meet my own.

It's hard to believe, seems awfully surreal, that I might be as successful alone as I was back with Panic!, even without a single show to our name. When we got out there to tens of thousands of fans coming to watch us from everywhere, reciting our words like their second alphabet. Now that I'm on that note, I'll say I was never sure whether I liked it or not that way. If I could change something about that whole experience, I'd have wanted to start out small, eating junk in the back of some battered van and playing cozy, friendly shows that would've prepared me for arena ones. Maybe then I wouldn’t have this crippling fright.

My music is personal, always has been, incurved with my secrets and fears and memories. It's open at the same time, as well, deep but laid out for all to see in a mixture of song titles and melodies and lyrics. All someone has to do is look at the bigger picture, think of what's real and what's planted and then look between the lines and there I'll be, stark naked in plain view. I could never help but write that way.

My music is very much similar to the rain on the day I first ever put pen to paper and decided "I could do this.", actually. A mixed thrumming in my ears that puts everything on hold.

My wife- and let's call her D - shifts, sliding her hand along my side and murmuring a dazed something in her sleep. I lean in and kiss her forehead, take in the smell of her skin and shampoo and watch the soft flutter of her shadowy eyelashes against her cheeks. I remember kissing her laughing lips on some night while watching a documentary on rabbits and sharing popcorn and chips like teenagers. I remember wooing her, leaning over to brush some stray hairs from her face and knocking down the plate of popcorn instead, covering the carpet with tiny white crumples everywhere. D, instead of grumbling about it like most girls would've, just laughed and laughed and laughed and poked fun at my sad attempt at flirting. And I was too busy watching her to care about the wasted popcorn, we still had the chips anyway.

I trace the side of her arm with my fingertips, prompting her to crack her lids open tiredly, to say "Sleep, baby. You'll be just fine."

And I sleep.

Perhaps I do like what I imagine after all.

I might not have Spencer or Brendon or Jon with me anymore but I won't have to talk my own self onto that stage later today. In my vision I have a new, solid support system that's my D. She'll be right beside me.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this lived up to your expectations, thanks for reading beautifuls! ♥


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